Defense Minister: Kerry is 'Obsessive and Messianic'

Yediot Aharonot cites Moshe Yaalon: 'The only thing that can save us is that John Kerry will get a Nobel peace prize and leave us alone.'

By Gil Ronen

First Publish: 1/14/2014, 8:59 AM

Moshe Yaalon

Flash 90

Daily newspaper Yediot Aharonot cites Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, in closed conversations, as dismissing the US 'peace plan' out of hand and calling US Secretary of State John Kerry “messianic” and “obsessive.”

According to senior reporter Shimon Shiffer, Yaalon said in closed conversations ahead of Kerry's latest visit that “the American security plan that was presented to us is not worth the paper it was written on. It contains neither security nor peace. Only our continued presence in Judea and Samaria and the Jordan River will guarantee that Ben Gurion Airport and (the northern city of) Netanya do not become targets for missiles from every direction.

“Secretary of State John Kerry – who came here very determined, and operates based upon an unfathomable obsession and a messianic feeling – cannot teach me anything about the Palestinians,” he is quoted as saying.

Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas “lives on our sword,” said Yaalon. “Once we leave Judea and Samaria, he is finished. In fact, throughout the recent months, there is no negotiation between us and the Palestinians – but rather, between us and the Americans. The only thing that can 'save' us is that John Kerry will get a Nobel peace prize and leave us alone.”

"I live and breathe the conflict with the Palestinians, I know what they think, what they want and what they really mean,” he went on. “The American security plan that was presented to us is not worth the paper it was written on.”

The defense minister and former IDF chief of staff, who joined Likud in 2008, explained in conversations with senior figures in the political sphere that Abbas will not give up his demand for the “right of return” until “the last refugee from 1948 is satisfied, and every single refugee will be able to choose between returning or staying in his current place of residence.”

Yaalon dismissed the security plan that was drawn up by US General (ret.) John Allen and 160 experts: “What are you talking about? You presented us with a plan that is based on smart technologies, satellites, sensors, war rooms with television screens – without our forces being present on the ground. And I ask you – how will your technology help us when a salafist terror cell, or one from the Islamic Jihad, tries to carry out a terror attack against Israel targets? Who will take care of them? What satellites will take care of the rocket industry that is developing in Shechem, and [the rockets that] will be launched at Tel Aviv and the central region? In Gaza, the terror organizations already hold thousands of rockets that cover central Israel. These terror organizations have transferred knowledge and technologies for manufacturing rockets to the [West] Bank.”

Yaalon backed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's demand that the PA recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people. “If that does not change,” he said, “then there is no meaning to the satellites and the sensors that the Americans are offering. The five-year-old boy with the explosive belt will continue to try and hurt us when he grows up.”

Yaalon is apparently concerned that Abbas will try to get Israel to agree to release more terrorist murderers from jail, and a freeze on construction in Judea and Samaria. He said that this is out of the question: “We have given enough and received nothing...Let us say to our American friends: enough is enough.”